


Stitching Ourselves Back Together

by thefrenchmistake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, FUCK SEASON 7, Friendship, Multi, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 06, They all deserved better, and so did we, fuck jroth, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: 5 times Raven asks Murphy to hold her, and one time she doesn't have to.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Emori/John Murphy (The 100), John Murphy & Raven Reyes, John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	Stitching Ourselves Back Together

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what's up with the shows that are ending these last two years, but I want to die.  
> So, here's my humble contribution to the suffering fandom. I always wished we had more moments between Raven/Murphy and Raven/Murphy/Emori.  
> Here goes, hope you like it !

1)

The view is incredible from up here. That’s what Raven is repeating in her head over and over, trying desperately to convince herself that it’s true.

The actual truth ? This view makes her goddamn sick. Yes, the patch of green should lift her spirits up, like it has this past year.

It doesn’t.

It just reminds her of this view, less the green, 6 years ago, Bellamy by her side looking down the Earth like at a lover’s grave (she supposes it was, in a way). It reminds her of his tears and his pain that she was the only one to witness, back then, still now. It reminds her of his inability to speak her name out loud without his eyes taking on a lost aspect, without an awful inflection in his voice that spoke of all they lost.

Raven shakes her head.

The green patch is still there, staring up at her like a death sentence. It might be. There’s no escape pod, after all.

Fuck, what she wouldn’t give to go back down there, to feel the wind and fresh air and walk on solid, actual ground. Raven’s eyes trace the scorching marks that stretch upon the surface, her mind conjuring the striking image of blue. She remembers what the sea smelled like, the salt heavy on Luna’s skin and breath, her belonging to the ocean clear in her every pore, smell and tongue and the words that flowed from her lips like waves.

She remembers when Clarke’s eyes were blue as well, blue like nothing she had ever seen on the Ark. It’s the first thing she saw upon landing, this incredible blue staring at her in wonder, in fear, in hope.

Raven wonders how she’d look at her now. If she’d be proud.

Sighing, she crosses her arms on her chest, the jacket doing nothing to block out the cold of this station and the loneliness promised by the empty grey rooms.

She was ready for silence and solitude. However, she was not ready for John Murphy’s snarky (and slightly unbearable yet reassuring) voice.

After the first shock has passed, with the knowledge Murphy is here, Raven breathes easier.

That goddamn Earth.

Despite her disgust for it and all the negative feelings it spurs, she prefers to look at it instead of metallic walls, or Murphy’s goddamn face. Which is why she’s sitting on the floor, trying to forget the pain her injured leg is causing her right now by letting it spread before her, and looking at this fucking Earth.

So close, and so far.

It’d be poetic, if it didn’t make her want to throw something at the wall or float herself.

A lots of things about the Delinquents would be poetic if it wasn’t bathed in their blood.

“What are you thinking about ?”

Instead of snapping back like she wants to and keep her vulnerability close to her sorry heart, Ravens sighs and leans back against the wall.

Her leg remains spread.

“About Clarke.”

And oh, isn’t it a wonder how Murphy’s face shifts. This name -this goddamn name, a curse and a blessing, forbidden to speak aloud both because it’s a dark omen and because it would be defiling it and the woman who wore it and bore it like a burden -, it does something to him, to her, to them all. It feels like the syllables don’t belong up here, cause Clarke was always someone down there, breathing and alive, and hated and adored.

It’s someone they knew and loved, someone estranged and feared. Clarke was a lot of things. Some of them Raven admired, some she despised.

“Oh ?” He simply replies. He doesn’t want to talk about it, hopes she’ll drop the subject as the guilt wearing them down feels too much to bear, sometimes.

Tough luck.

“Yeah. I like tot think that… I don’t know, sometimes I like to imagine she’s down there. That she’s ok and learning to live again.”

Oddly enough, he folds his long limbs to sit next to her, and lets out a breath. He looks at the Earth, so she does, too. It’s always easier to talk when they don’t face each other, and that speaks a lot of the courage they lack when it comes to emotions.

“Do you think about her often ?”

“Only all the fucking time. It just got easier with time. Do you ?”

“Not really, no.”

“I wish I could.”

“We all wallowed in our misery for some time, dealt with our own trauma and our own grief. Our own way of mourning her, but you never did,” he remarks like it’s something he’s thought about for a while.

She doubts it is.

“Yeah I did,” she disagrees, glancing at him. “You just never noticed.”

“You didn’t, Raven. You immediately started burying yourself into work, into fixing things, cause that’s how you cope when you can’t control it.”

“I wallowed plenty, Murphy,” she mocks, but the joke falls flat as her voice cracks. “Bellamy.... Bellamy and I used to get shit drunk thinking about Clarke. Hell, we swung punches once.”

“Yeah, we fucking heard.”

She snorts, because he’s one to talk about hearing things you shouldn’t. Their nightmares often woke everyone the first year; Bellamy’s are usually quiet, harsh breathing, eyes lost in sorrow and wells of endless pain now that the protector had failed and his purposes were all stripped away, leaving him bare of hope and any identity that didn’t revolve around his sister or his…. Whatever Clarke was to him.

Harper weeps like she does everything else, softly but wholly, sobs breaking her body as the feel of a drill still breaks her bone and pierces her every nerve. Monty doesn’t make a sound, lets the tears flow freely and grips Harper too tight. Echo wanders aimlessly, looking for a fight no one is willing to give.

Raven screams, sometimes. Calls out names, and that makes her crazy, that her mind she’s so proud of betrays her like that in the nighttime, lets everyone be witness to Finn’s execution and Sinclair’s death and ALIE digging through her brains and Clarke’s name dying on her lips.

After the nightmares, there came other sounds. Happier. Less guilty. Laughter, teasing, kissing, the sounds Emori and Murphy made at every hour of the day that made her bang against walls screaming at them to cut it out because she was trying to work, damnit, while Bellamy chuckled at her. But they heard it all, during those six years.

“Come on,” she taunts, punching his arm and ignoring his insulted look, “don’t tell me you never think about her.”

“Of course I do,” he snaps, meaner than intended. That’s alright, though; Murphy always seems meaner than he really is (it’s in the gestures, and the words, learned and inherited from the Ark and a lifetime of betrayal and anger).

“Of course I do,” he repeats, softer. “But I despise what ifs and maybes, and I can’t…. I don’t want to think about her being alive, because I know she’s not.”

“Then what do you think about ?”

“There was this time when… when we were with Emori, at Becca’s mansion, and… well, I cooked. When I made her taste it, it’s just…. shit, it’s dumb,” he interrupts himself, passing a hand through his hair and looking up at the sight before them.

“Keep going,” she says, tapping his foot with hers. “I’m emotionally invested now.”

He snorts, but she’s not really joking; she might even be a little envious that he got to live something so mundane with Clark, while all she ever got was life and death situations that either tore them apart or made them crash together harder than ever.

“It’s so dumb. But it’s the look on her face.”

Those words bring tearful ocean eyes, face twisted by pain, lips quivering, and a bright beam, once, turning way from her to run and hide in Bellamy’s neck. She doubts Murphy means any of those.

“What was it like ?”

“Like a teenager’s. She was so shocked, and her eyes were bright, and I just think it’s the only time I saw that look on her, without any guilt weighing her down.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, the desire to curl herself into a ball getting bigger and bigger. “She was always so…”

“Broken.”

His voice holds something, something she knows she can’t grasp without an explanation, and so she waits with apprehension until he eventually admits :

“I was there when Lexa died. I was right there. I don’t know, I like to remember her face when she was baffled, in that dumb white kitchen, because it’s maybe the one time she wasn’t a broken kid.”

“I can’t remember the last time I heard her laugh,” Raven says, thumping her head back against the wall.

“The first year, all I could see was her smile in that kitchen.”

They stay silent for a while, his mind probably in the same place as hers -Clarke bloody and bruised, Wanheda, Clarke in a jumpsuit, and an image of a burned corps Raven doesn’t want to think about- and the silence is almost comforting. There’s no judgement here, never can be again between them, cause they’ve done horrible things but the difference now is that they’d do those horrible things again for each other. Maybe that’s why she talks again.

Raven admits to him what she never admitted to anyone, self-loathing evident in her voice, but that’s alright as well, because Murphy is the king of self-loathing. Fuck, they all are.

“I never told her I cared, you know.”

“Me neither.”

“She cared so much about everyone, all the time, and I never told her. Why the fuck not ?”

He doesn’t have an answer, and that’s just as well because she doesn’t seek and answer. The question hangs in the little air there is in this cube.

She never told her.

Raven won’t make that mistake again.

She doesn’t need to ask, just grabs his wrist and pulls his arm around her shoulders. If he thinks it weird, he doesn’t comment (not even for a joke or a tease, which really speaks of the gravity of their situation).

When he brings her closer to him in order to tuck her more fully under his arm, she thinks that maybe he gets it.

2)

The voice seems otherworldly through the radio, summoned from six years ago and painful memories and nightmares. But all Raven can feel is the lump in her throat and the tears threatening to spill when she asks, almost afraid to have the hope snatched from between her fingers :

“Clarke ?”

And Murphy rips the radio from her hand and she’s too floored to protest as he chuckles “Jeez and they call me the cockroach”. That snaps her out of it, this reassurance that it’s the same world and the six years have indeed happened, because Murphy’s snarky voice unused to sugar-coated words brings her back to reality.

Years of remorse, of regret, of everything she hasn’t let escape yet pour into the simplest :

“Thank you for saving our lives.”

And then she’s gone again, like a dream, like a fucking illusion, but when she turns to Murphy, the dazed look on his face doesn’t lie.

She knows she shouldn’t put that much weight on her leg, but in this moment nothing matters because Clarke’s alive, alive, and she’s with Bellamy and together they’re a force to be reckoned with and they’ll be ok and Clarke’s _alive_. So yeah, to hell with her brace, she thinks, and then she launches herself at Murphy, jumping up to wrap her legs and arms around his body koala style.

He stumbles forward before regaining his balance and catching her.

“What the…”

“Shut up and hug me, you asshole.”

“Asked so nicely, who am I to refuse ?”

She snorts.

“Dick.”

The warmth of his body is comforting, which is not something she thought she would ever associate with Murphy, of all people. Bellamy is a reassuring presence, all warm and nice and papa bear. Raven herself is smart and teasing and all in all, easy to be around and efficient. Murphy ? Murphy is complicated. One never knows what is next move will be. But like the tide, the apparent hazardousness of his actions hides a regular line of thought, which comes close to their own; protect the ones that matter. And if Murphy holds her closer to his heart and mind than the rest, who is she to complain ?

Because they all walk through fire together, and she’s surprised that each and every time, he’s waiting for her on the other side, dragging her through no matter what, no matter how many times he gets burned.

They find a stash of booze, because no matter the place and time, if there are people, there’s booze.

She’s strangely grateful for it right now. Raven is not that good at emotions, especially when the only person mirroring these emotions is as useless with them as her.

Which doesn’t exactly explain their series of unfortunate decisions.

Anyway, Raven is pleasantly -completely- drunk, mind filled with Clarke’s voice and Clarke’s hair and the Earth’s scents and Murphy’s laugh, when he waves a bottle vaguely towards her that almost knocks her in the chin.

She gives him a look, but she isn’t sure of the result.

“You know who’s awesome ? Harper. Harper is awesome,” he slurs, not awaiting her answer.

“I know, right ?”

“Right. She’s just so…. awesome,” he gives up.

“Right,” she says, without knowing what she’s agreeing to, before repeating for emphasis. “Right.”

She spaces out, long enough for him to slide closer without her notice.

His finger digs in her side and she swats his hand away.

“Murphy, behave.”

He rolls his eyes, raises his hands in the air to appease her, but his next words have the contrary effect.

“I’ll be good.”

She told herself -she told _him_ \- that they should never, ever, under any circumstances, talk or even think about that night on the Ark. But now there are flashes, there’s his smirk as she snatched his hands and put them above his head on the bed, as he taunted her with eyes that burned brighter in this moment than in five years “I’ll be good”, and she laughed and laughed, but she’s not laughing now.

Her hands might be shaking as well, to be honest.

It’s the booze.

“Dickface,” she mutters.

Murphy laughs.

3)

She has already scouted every inch of this room, and there’s no escape from here. The shock collar burns her skin and the perspiration on her body has become cold, and Raven wonders if this is the worst situation they’ve found themselves in.

Unfortunately, it’s not.

Which means they’ll make it out of here. But for now, they’re stuck, which does not agree with her _at all_.

“Do you think they’re ok ?” She asks, because a distraction is what she needs right now, so that her brain can take a step back and focus better on the task itself, not the endless possible outcomes.

“I mean, are they ever ?”

“Nice.”

“Hey, you asked.”

Her head falls to his shoulder, and his hand lays on hers in a rare display of affection that speaks volume about the precariousness of this situation.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, you got that ?”

“Fuck off,” she snaps back with no bark. “I’m the one who always saves your sorry ass.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Neither of them point out that Murphy almost died in front of her; that she couldn’t do anything to stop it; that her pleas were pointless.

They’re good at ignoring things they don’t wanna face. They’re also good at annoying each other, which is probably why Raven stays quiet only a few minutes before she says :

“We’re gonna fucking die.”

“Excuse you,” he answers, moving to face her so she has to lift her head from his shoulder, “I do not need this kind of negativity in my life.”

“Your life is gonna be hella shortened if we keep this up.”

“Keep what up ?”

“Not doing anything, I guess,” she shrugs, cause they both know she’s the brains and right now her inner genius seems to be on a strike. Still, she trusts herself; she’ll figure something out.

Murphy gets punched in the face the minute someone comes back in, and it’s not that she doesn’t appreciate watching him get punched in the face, but still. It doesn’t bode well for her.

So when the supposedly nice one starts a questioning of some sort, she knows she should shut the hell up, but Murphy is still being manhandled by two guys and the memory of the blade on his throat is too fresh to do what she should.

“Which one did this ?” He asks again, maybe for the third time, and this time Raven tilts her head to the side to look up at him, completely ignoring Murphy’s gaze.

“That’s me,” she snaps, and can almost hear Bellamy, down on Earth, facepalming.

The pilot looks at her too long, a curious glint in his eyes, but then the big thug comes at her.

“Hey, hey !” Murphy shouts when he grabs her arm, pulling her on her feet. Her leg screams.

“No,” the pilot interrupts the big one, “let her go. I need to talk to McCreary.”

“We should take….”

“Which one is the smart one between us again ?”

The thug grumbles under his breath, releasing the iron grip he had on her arm. Raven stumbles awkwardly to a sitting position.

“Go ask McCreary to join me in the engines room,” the pilot orders again.

The two men obey, albeit with dirty looks, and then there’s three of them in the room.

When Murphy gives her a questioning look, she shakes her head discreetly -no need to attack now, it’s too much of a risk.

The Eligius guy stares at her, long enough for Raven to grow uneasy, long enough for her fingers to feel the floor in search of a nail or something else that she can use.

“You should be more careful,” he eventually adds. “Taking the blame doesn’t usually end well, especially if it’s a lie.”

Before she can respond, he’s out and the door is slamming behind him, the metallic sound of it another reminder that they’re captive in fucking _space_.

She walks to Murhphy, carefully avoids stepping in the blood he spit out, and sits beside him.

There’s nothing to say, so they say nothing for a long, long time. He ruins it, because of course he does.

“You’re oddly quiet.”

“No one plans a murder out loud.”

“And how exactly do you plan to kill that dick ?”

“Who says it’s not you I plan to kill ?”

“Ugh. You wouldn’t survive a day without me.”

“Right,” she snarks, because they both know it’s absolutely not true. Maybe she would lose her sanity though, that’s possible.

Even with him here, it’s still on the table.

“Just let me think,” she sighs instead. She knows that the crazy ass guy with the knife will fucking kill him next time. That’s not something Raven can accept, not now, not ever. Murphy is supposed to thrive in adversity, not get shanked at first contact. Although she has to admit she almost shanked him the first time they met (and then almost shot him, and she’s stopped counting all they’ve done to each other, would rather remember all they’ve done for each other).

There is a variable that pisses her off though, that makes the outcome of this shitshow even less predictable; they’d both die for each other.

That’s problematic. That fucks all the variables.

She thumps her head against the wall, sighing heavily.

“I’m cold.”

“Really ? Let me just go get a… Oh, that’s right, we’re _prisoners_. How dare they not make us comfortable.”

“Fuck you Murphy. It was just a remark.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a stupid one.”

“It’s not,” she shoots back. “I was almost never cold on….Oh.”

Raven trails off, stumbles to her feet, throws her head back.

“Oh,” she repeats, eyes roaming over the ceiling. She slowly walks around the small room, ignores his questioning eyebrows. Until she licks her finger and holds it out in front of her, and that’s when he gives up.

“That’s it. You’ve lost it. We’re doomed.”

But there’s definitely a gust of wind -well, not true wind- coming downwards, so she waves a hand to shut him up, then to beckon him closer.

“Give me a lift,” she orders, brain already working like crazy.

She wants out of this cell, out of this fucking collar, out of this ship, out of fucking space.

God, she’s so sick of space.

Murphy obeys like he always does, grumbling and cursing, but doing as she says nonetheless and with intense care.

His hands wrap around her calves extremely gentle but firm, and she trusts him with all her leg like she doesn’t trust anyone else. It’s the guilt-ridden gentleness with which he handles it.

It pisses her off a bit, but a part of her heart also melts each time, so.

Punching the ceiling feels good, at least, and allows her to let her pent-up frustration loose.

Murphy hisses under her.

“Jesus, Reyes. How much algae did you eat these six years ?”

“Fuck you.”

“Stop fidgeting it… Jeez,” he curses when she moves too abruptly to the right, making him stumble a bit. Raven’s hands grip his hair like a lifeline.

“Don’t let me fall,” she breathes out, panicked. A bad landing on her leg would screw the bone, and who knows what else.

“I won’t.”

Some might expect declarations of love -friendship, she corrects- a teasing smile or a heartfelt discussion, but to Raven the serious of his tone and the knowledge that indeed, Murphy would never let her fall, is enough.

Ok, she thinks, ok.

“What are you looking for exactly ?”

She knows it’s just to distract her from the height. He’s not dumb, there isn’t an endless list of things to seek in a ceiling. She’s grateful for it.

“Vents. The cold came from a source, and I’m pretty sure it’s from here, so. Vents. Might allow us to escape.”

“You’re not gonna fit with all that algae stocked up.”

“Fuck you,” she says again.

Around ten minutes later, Murphy hisses through his teeth :

“Ok get down.”

“But I didn’t find the…”

“Reyes, either you get down or I throw you down. I am not as fit as I once was.”

“Were you ever ?” She mocks, but obediently puts her feet to the ground once he crouches down.

On looking at his face though, at the bruise that is starting to be purple on the side of his head, at the trickle of blood still marking his temple, Raven feels like shit.

She huffs, looks to the side.

“Raven.”

“What ?”

“Don’t you do that.”

“Do what ?” She pretends like a petulant child.

“I’ve suffered your mechanical talk for six fucking years, and I know exactly what it looks like when you’re frustrated.”

He doesn’t say “when you hate yourself” like she knows he wants to, cause the worst he ever saw her was when she couldn’t fix the radio, and then the engine to go back down to Earth. They don’t really speak about those times.

“Aren’t you ?” She says instead of dwelling on those memories.

“Yes,” he immediately says, but he leans his face forward so than his smirk is blinding when he admits “But I know you’re gonna figure this out.”

Her hands grip his stupid face and bring his stupid mouth to hers before her mind has the chance to wake up.

He makes a sound against her, and maybe she’s holding him too hard, maybe she’s opening her lips too fast, but his arms wrap around her middle gently and Raven doesn’t care.

For a few seconds.

Then her brain catches up with her, and she pulls back, wide eyes and all.

She’d be afraid of his mocking if he didn’t look so utterly stupid right now, slack-jawed and eyes as wide as hers.

They don’t talk. They just look at each other’s stupid face.

Her lips burn. Maybe that’s why she finally begins :

“I’m sorry, I....”

“You kissed me,” Murphy says like the oblivious asshole he is, dumb enough for her to want to snort.

“I.... Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s. Yeah.”

There are about a thousand things she could do right now.

She could do what she wants; bring him back to her lips and kiss him again, finding a bit of solace in this situation. She does the next best thing.

She ignores everything and looks above his shoulder, tries to ignore the way he’s still holding her.

“Murphy.”

“Yeah.” He answers, still dazed.

“We said we wouldn’t let it happen again.”

“I know.”

“It was one time, during an emotional....”

“I know, Raven. But tell me this is a perfectly normal time.”

“For us, it is. We just forgot that as soon as we leave the safety of space, we’re done for.”

He stays silent, and she thinks that’s it. Six years of calling each other out on whatever dumb shit they did, six years of sexual tension leading to that goddamn night she wishes so bad she could regret, six years of her pushing him towards Emori, the love of his life, and it leads to this dumb, awkward situation.

She really has to learn to have more faith in him. Because, once again, he’s the one to break the tension.

“I always knew you had a crush on me.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” she strains out, but she’s chuckling like an idiot and yeah, that’s good, that’s familiar.

“Why ? Embarrassed ?”

“Just... just shut up, yeah ?”

“Sure. Think you can resist kissing me again ?”

“I will punch you.”

“Nah. You’re all talk.”

So she punches him.

4)

Her eye is still heavy, and she almost can’t see anything under the swelling except the blood and the bodies collapsing in the reactor.

At this point in her life, bile has found a permanent place in her throat, but thinking about the lies that burn her tongue and cheeks makes her want to throw up. She doesn’t. Instead, she watches as Murphy whispers something to an extremely worried Emori, in the doorway. She follows his way back into the room once the other girl has disappeared, and is surprised when he comes to her, which is stupid.

“Your eye looks awful.”

“Feels worse,” she rasps at him out of reflex more than anything else, cause she feels like collapsing on herself.

“I bet it does.”

She doesn’t look at him, hovers next to the bed awkwardly. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to do.

Raven feels broken, guilt-ridden and irrevocably changed. It feels unnatural to just… Lay in silk and go to sleep like nothing has happened.

The world has come crashing down around her, all her certitudes brought to their knees and buried underneath lies and blood that fill her nostrils and throat.

She’s used to the smell of blood, the taste of it heavy on her tongue, but no matter how many times her mouth fills up with it, she can’t seem to push the memory of a bullet in her leg and a boy’s apologies out of her mind.

Maybe that’s why she talks again, when he’s on the verge of leaving.

She wants him gone, but she wants him here. She doesn’t know which is worse.

“Murphy ?”

The quietness of her wavering voice must catch his attention, because he stops his movement and turns to her.

She doesn’t dare meet his eye.

“Can you…. Will you stay ?”

She would’ve said please if she was weaker or stronger, would’ve launched into his arms a while ago if she was braver.

She’s not.

“Can’t manage without me, uh ?”

She would snap back if a sob didn’t catch in her throat and suddenly she feels like suffocating. Then Murphy is beside her, a hand on her shoulder pushing her to lay down.

In a few seconds, her head is in his lap, and she doesn’t think twice about burying her face in his stomach, sucking in all the warmth and comfort she can.

“She did a number on you, didn’t she ?”

His sternum trembles against her mouth. Raven winds her arms around his back and grips his shirt tightly.

“I knew I should’ve done something, it’s…”

“She had every right,” she mutters through a sob, cause it’s the only thought twirling in her mind since she covered the bodies with sheets too thin to efficiently hide her crime. “She would’ve killed you if…”

“You’re more important.”

“Fuck off Murphy,” she snarls, but the effect is kinda lost in the tears. “Don’t you dare throw a pity party right now.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good,” she breathes, new-found energy vanished. It takes her gulping multiple times for the next words to come out. “Cause I can’t do without you, so. Here it is.”

He stays silent for so long she almost falls asleep, despite the guilt choking her down and the pain numbing her whole body. Then, she feels his chest rumble, his muscles jumping, and it takes more time than it should to understand he’s talking. Repeating, whispering something, like a prayer, like….

“ _Ai giv ai op gon nemiyon kom lanik-de_.”

Her heart stutters, in surprise or affection, she doesn’t know. For a second, she thinks she misheard, but then he repeats it.

“ _Ai giv ai op gon nemiyon kom lanik-de_.”

 _I give myself to the miracle of the sea_.

His words roll under her ear, against her skin, seeping down to her bones in a wave of calm. She almost feels Luna’s breath on her temple, almost feels her lips on her cheek, pictures the sea and the slow tide, hears the intonation of the words, a bit wrong, but all Murphy and all earth-like.

He keeps saying it, and it keeps helping her breathe, until she dares to interrupt.

“How did you learn that ?”

He freezes under her, like he thought she was asleep. Maybe she had been, for a while.

“Taught myself, at Becca’s lab. I saw Luna calm you down, and… Thought it could be useful.”

Raven is not one to use the word “sweet”, especially not associated with Murphy, but she can’t help it now; it’s the kindest thing he’s done, and she never knew.

It’s so simple.

It makes her want to cry again. Instead, she just tightens her hold on him, buries her face deeper in his stomach, and feels relieved when his right hand strokes her hair, his left finding the place where her ribs hurt the most. He keeps speaking Trig, like a song to lull her to sleep.

Distantly, she wonders how much time until he dies.

How much longer before they all die.

5)

All is well, and Raven can’t quite bring herself to believe it.

War is over. They’re all home. Octavia is the weird aunt of an even weirder girl who’s supposed to be a month old, not 15 years old or whatever it was. Weird heritage that one has, between Bloodreina as auntie O and the world’s worst terrorist as a mom. Well. At least she’s interesting.

Miller is shagging Jackson somewhere she doesn’t wanna see, Emori has forced her to dance three times already, Gaia is playing mom of the group as always, and Raven has let herself fall, exhausted, to a couch. They have couches here, and she just discovered the beauty of an outside set furniture. They weaved dozens of lights in the structure above her head, which means she’s not in the dark, and can watch all her friends make fools of themselves just a few feet away. Echo brought her a drink (with a bottle, for which she’s grateful), Clarke came to give her a heartfelt hug and a smile she never thought she’d see on her face again, and Maddie pressed a kiss to her cheek until she swatted the child away.

Bellamy is following Clarke like a puppy, trying to earn her forgiveness for his behavior in the damn cult -thank fuck that’s over- and Raven is just enjoying laying back, honestly. Her brain, which refuses to turn off even when exhausted to death, can’t stop analyzing the way Bellamy hovers around the blonde girl, whose eyes often glance at him when he can’t see. It was always like that with them, for almost as long as she can remember. The leader and the protector, both sacrificing everything for their people, both broken except in each other’s eyes. Or maybe they could see how broken they were, but thought it beautiful anyway. Raven’s too tired to think about how sad that is.

Murphy slumps in the couch next to her, and she remembers a time where she wouldn’t go within ten feet of him. How times change.

“You celebrating ?”

“Yeah,” she says, and it has the same intonation than a “duh”.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he snarks, “your brooding in a corneralone with a drink for sole company didn’t scream fun to me.”

“Bullshit. You love brooding, and you never brood without a drink.”

“Point taken.”

“So,” she begins with her serious voice and a jerk of her head towards Bellamy, “is Clarke….”

“Still in love with him ? Of course.”

“And I suppose he…”

“Still can’t see it ? God, they’re so fucking dense.”

“I know, right ? How can two of the smartest people I know be so stupid ?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say smartest…”

“Really ?”

“You’re the smartest I know.”

“No shit,” she snorts, because she knows it’s true, but also because Murphy’s compliments and the soft tone he uses are too much for her and spark thoughts in her mind she would rather not think about.

But shit, does she like it all the same.

“How is Emori ?”

“Drunk.”

Raven laughs in her drink.

“And happy, I think,” he adds like a second thought, which makes her believe it’s what he wanted to say in the first place. “Hopeful.”

“That’s good,” she smiles. Emori deserves it, deserves a real life.

Maybe they all do.

“You wanna dance ?”

She gulps back a laugh, crooks an eyebrow at him.

“You asking me to slow dance with you Murphy ?”

“I developed a taste for it,” he shrugs, unapologetic. “Emori taught me.”

“That’s cute.”

“Fuck off.”

She laughs again, feeling more free than ever before. Tempted by the idea (even if it’s just to step on his feet, it’ll be worth it) she starts pulling herself upwards.

The movement of her leg spurs a hiss out of her mouth as her eyes snap shut in pain.

“You ok ?”

“Yeah,” she eventually sighs, although she’s clearly not considering “Just the leg.”

A second too late, she remembers who she’s talking to and how he still blames himself for her limp. Every time, she remembers too late.

She doesn’t like it, doesn’t know how to deal with his guilt except by screaming at him to just get over it, but she doesn’t want to scream now. So she keeps her eyes shut tight.

That’s why the hand he suddenly lays on her thigh makes her jerk up.

“Wh…” before she can finish her question, his fingertips are pressing in her skin, working out the knots and pain at once, and she’s so taken aback both by the delicacy with which he operates and the gesture itself that her eyes snap to his involuntarily.

“Is that alright ?” He asks, almost bashful.

“It’s alright, it’s alright.”

At her affirmation, he moves his digits above her knee, starting on her thigh before working their way down ever so slowly.

“Just…” Raven hesitates before finally laying back all the way in the couch and yielding. “Keep doing that.”

“That ?”

The question comes with his fingertips digging deeper into her skin, on each side of her knee, and her hips jerk up involuntarily. She brings her arm up to hide her face in her elbow. If she weren’t Raven Reyes, she could blush at her reaction.

“Yeah,” she mutters, out of breath. “Yeah, that.”

He doesn’t complain, even when Emori comes to inquire after them and he chooses to stay with her, even when she goes numb under his ministrations, even when it’s been too long and the music starts to fade.

Well. Fuck her. A free massage by the hands of John Murphy, the world has really gone to shit.

It’s alright, though. They’re used to the world being shit.

6)

It’s been two months since everything started going right again, and the other shoe still hasn’t dropped.

They chose their houses within Sanctum, while the Eligius crew has started gathering both intel and equipment necessary to build their own compound. Raven is often solicited, and each time she thinks of Hatch and what all these people owe him, and what she owes to them all. So she helps as best as she can, and she chooses Ryker’s house, for the mechanic’s workshop.

Everyone comes by once in a while, either to get her help with something or just to chat. Oddly enough, Clarke is the one Raven sees the most of. Now that life is better, easier, she’s growing to find joy in the little things, like the music players they found or the cameras. They spend hours bent over them, Raven explaining every little mechanism to her while she watches with wonder in her eyes and a smile on her lips.

Raven loves it.

Bellamy comes by, too, fixing slowly but surely his relationship with every member of their broken group, though his visits mainly coincide with Clarke’s. This last also comes to draw, and if Raven glances at Monty and Harper’s faces, Lexa’s intimate smile, Well’s eyes and Fin’s goofy air, she also sees her paint the new world, and endless pages of Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy. As he once was, as he is now. Always beautiful.

She wonders when they’ll get their shit together, and then she reminds herself that they have all the time in the world, now.

Still. It’s annoying.

Contrary to what she expected, Emori and John don’t take the room in the Palace. They choose a small house just on the edge of town, more like an apartment, which shouldn’t surprise her; they were always hovering around the group, even during six years in the air. They need their space, and Raven don’t blame them.

She needs it, too. Gradually, instead of fixing more and more problems, she just makes life more comfortable. It’s not a question of life and death anymore, it’s a question of happiness. Of making life better.

Of making this planet better.

The change is… Good. Really good.

Which would explain why she herself finds little ways to improve her friends’ houses, and why she just pops in once a week. Emori and Murphy have come to expect her, though each time they manage to appear surprised.

She has just installed a lamp that she fiddled with so it would change colors on their wall when she notices the couple looking at her with a smile on their faces.

“What ?” She asks, defensive.

Murphy rolls his eyes. Emori simply smiles wider.

“We’re just glad to have you here.”

“Hell yeah, who would offer you cool stuff otherwise ?”

Emori chuckles, coming up to her and pecking her on the cheek.

“Thank you.”

For some reason, the words seem to encompass more than just the lamp -or the stereo-or the fixed stove- so Raven allows herself to smile back.

“You’re welcome. Besides, the gifts are just compensation. Can’t believe it’s easy to put up with Murphy on a daily basis.”

“Fuck you Reyes,” he answer, giving her the finger, but Emori is laughing and when she exits their house, the sun is caressing her face and the air is fresh and there’s the distant noises of Sanctum’s life.

It feels like stepping on Earth for the first time, feels like hearing Clarke’s voice after 6 years in space, like seeing Bellamy after thinking he was dead, like reuniting with Emori and Murphy after Bardo’s disaster.

It feels like a new chance. It feels like they did Monty and Harper proud.

“You dozing off ?”

“Just enjoying the view,” she replies, turning towards him.

Murphy seems softer in this light, or in this new life. She can’t really tell the difference anymore.

Her heart is kind of bursting.

“Hey Raven ?”

She arches an eyebrow, but before she can ask, he simply grabs her hips and hops her up like it’s nothing. Instinctively, she wraps her legs around his waist, not without thinking _what the fuck_ but then he’s holding her so tight she inexplicably wants to cry, and his nose buries in her neck.

Her own arms tighten around his neck like they’ve never dared to, more like a reunion embrace than a goodbye. The emotion of it is as inexplicable as overwhelming.

“Thank you.”

She doesn’t ask what for, she doesn’t know why, but it’s alright.

Because here, in John fucking Murphy’s arms, Raven thinks, probably for the first time since she landed on the ground, that things will turn out just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading, I hope this lessened the pain of the Finale.... There are so many amazing fix-its out there, so unleash the beast.  
> Finally, comments are the food of the writer y'all, and I am hungry.  
> And angry at JRoth, so one more for the road : fuck him.


End file.
